03.06.2009

Haulotte to operate Access Rentals as seperate business

Haulotte has confirmed its acquisition of UK rental company Access Rentals from its administrator, including all permanent staff under their current terms and conditions of employment.

Access Rentals will continue to trade under its existing name and the business will be run as a separate entity within the Haulotte Group.

Access Rentals is a UK based aerial lift rental business operating out of nine locations with 70 staff and a fleet of over 1,000 machines.

A statement from the company said: "This is good news for all Access Rentals’ customers who will now benefit from the increased availability of a wider range of machines to meet all their access needs."
See original report

Vertikal Comment

This looks like good news for the UK powered access industry, Haulotte stepped in several years ago to take over UK Platforms, which was a poorly run savage rate cutter at the time. It turned that business around and transformed it into a reasonably well respected participant in the UK rental market.

Access Rentals was actually nothing like UK Platforms and operationally was not a bad business, even though it was seen as being ‘second rate’ in some quarters. In reality its average rates and service levels generally far exceeded the negative anecdotes.

Many were concerned that if the company had re-emerged in the wrong hands, having alleviated itself of a good deal of its debt, it might have used its lower cost base to wage a rate war against battle weary competitors.

Whether that would have been the case or not we will never know, Haulotte however has a track record of running a responsible rental business and may well look at selling Access Rentals on to a quality buyer as confidence and funding return to the market?

The main thing is - a major mess, had the business gone down entirely, has been avoided, and around 70 people in the industry have jobs tonight while the company is in responsible hands.